


Through New Eyes

by lynnenne



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:31:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynnenne/pseuds/lynnenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel is gravely injured after the final battle in "Not Fade Away." Spike takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through New Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thekita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekita/gifts).



It starts with the core. The breastbone, right above the heart. He's learned this over the years, after many failed attempts. You can try to start with the head or the arms or the legs, but it always ends in limbs rolling off and spinning away. Feet of clay, dreams of Nebuchadnezzar. Kingdoms in ruins.

With Spike in particular, it's this still, silent place that supports the whole. Angel has learned this lesson too, over many years. A strong sculpture starts with the heart, even one that no longer beats. Funny, then, that when he tries to carve Spike's form for the first time in more than a century, he feels as if he's learned nothing at all.

*

"Where are we?" are the first words that unspool from his mouth when he regains consciousness. Cottonmouth snake, fangs dried and venomless. There's a bird of prey circling high above, waiting.

"Underground." Spike's voice echoes around the chamber. It sounds like concrete. The floor is cold but dry. "Abandoned parking garage."

Angel sits up but quickly topples. Spike's hands clench around his torso.

"Gunn?" Angel's voice is as unsteady as his body.

"Illyria took him to hospital. Told her we'd hide out here until dark. Your legs alright?"

Every part of him aches, but nothing feels broken. He's pretty sure he'll be able to walk in a few minutes, once he regains his balance. "We should go. Check on him."

"Angel, you can't walk into a hospital and expect to walk out again. Not in your—"

The bird of prey is diving, mouth set and silent.

He raises his hands to his neck. Touches the marred flesh, where dragon fire melted leather against bone. Up further, where cheekbone is seared bare, eyeballs licked dry.

He remembers. The dragon swooped down on him, opened its mouth and unleashed a furnace seven times hotter than hell.

Angel touches his eye sockets. His fingers slip inside. There are two charcoal briquettes where his eyes should be, ashen and crumbling beneath his fingers.

The snake writhes in the eagle's beak, carried off and screaming.

*

Spike sits with him for half an hour, nattering all the while. He talks about the demons he killed. Tells how Illyria cleared an escape route through a nearby building, using the heads of a couple of rhino-type demons to bust through the brick. How they all climbed through the hole in the wall, her carrying Gunn and Spike toting Angel, and made their way to the sewers.

Angel can see it all in his mind, as if he could still see.

"Told her to meet us back here once Gunn was safe," Spike says. Angel can hear his fingers tapping against his thigh, the way they do when he's nervous. "She should be back by now."

"We should find out which hospital she took him to." Angel stands, and this time he doesn't topple. Spike's hand on his shoulder shoves him back down.

"I'll go," Spike barks. "You walk into that place with empty eye sockets, they're gonna gas you, wheel you into surgery and then wonder why the patient's suddenly dead on the table."

Angel's hands go to his face again, touching the charred flesh. He's been touching it the whole time Spike was talking.

"Where's my sword?" he asks.

"You dropped it when the dragon—" Something pokes against his arm. Angel's fingers move toward it and close around a hilt. "Take mine," Spike says. "I'll raid the blood bank while I'm there. Back in a hour."

"I'll kill anything that gets in," Angel jokes weakly. He can't hear if Spike is grinning.

*

Spike comes back two hours later. It might be less than that, but in the blackness it's easy to lose track of—well, everything.

"It's me," he announces.

"You don't have to tell me that," Angel snaps. "I could smell you."

"Rude much?" Spike snorts.

"You smell like sewers and demon pus," Angel says.

"Charmer." Spike kneels next to Angel, and there's the sound of plastic rolling carefully to the concrete. Angel's hands close around a blood bag and his mouth waters. He still has a mouth. Somehow the fire didn't get his lips, his chin or the left side of his neck. It was only the rainstorm that kept his whole body from going up in flames.

"How's Gunn?" he asks once the bag is empty. He picks up a second one and bites into that, too.

"In intensive care. Surgery was touch and go, but the doc seems to think he'll make it. Talked my ear off about the finesse job they did on Charlie's insides. 'Delicate operation, trickiest I've ever performed, it'll make all the medical journals.' Surgeons."

Angel tries to chuckle. "All ego, some of them."

"They're like CEOs in that way."

It occurs to Angel that he'll have to get a new job. Maybe he and Connor can…

He'll have to check on Connor.

"We can't stay here," he mutters.

"Way ahead of you." Spike's voice is above him now, so he must be standing. Angel didn't hear him move. "Nicked a car on the way back. I know a place, bit west of here. Ghost town, nearly. Lots of empty shells where we can scuttle ourselves away."

"Like turtles," Angel grumbles.

"I was thinking more like crabs. Turtles plod. Crabs scuttle. S'why they call them scuttle fish."

Angel tips his head in the direction he imagines Spike to be. "They're called _cuttle_ fish, you moron. Which _don't_ have shells."

The soles of Spike's boots scuff against the concrete, and Angel imagines him spinning on his heel. "Look, I know you're cranky 'cause you're suddenly all Muad'Dib, but you might not wanna piss off the vampire who's gonna be acting as your guide dog for the next—however long it takes for eyeballs to grow back."

"What the fuck is a mwadeeb?"

"A blind messiah who ends up getting half the galaxy killed."

Well. That shuts Angel right up.

The scuffling of boots lasts for another minute. "Car's outside," Spike mutters. "We should pack up the blood and go."

Angel stands. Spike puts his hand on his coat, but Angel shakes it off. Until he takes five steps and walks into a concrete pillar. This time he can hear the chuckle.

"You don't look anything like Paul Muad'Dib," Spike says when his hand reconnects with Angel's arm. A beat, then, "Actually, he looked a lot like your pal Drogyn."

Considering that Angel killed Drogyn, that doesn't make him feel any better.

*

They're 10 minutes into the drive before Angel thinks to ask about Illyria.

"Scarpered," Spike says over the low hum of the radio. "No sign of her at the hospital. Doc said she left as soon as they wheeled Charlie into surgery. No one's seen her since."

"She probably went to get Wes." Angel had hoped to give him a proper funeral.

"I'll make some calls once we get where we're going."

Angel doesn't ask where that is.

*

The drive isn't a long one, but they're definitely not in LA anymore. Angel can tell by the lack of traffic noises and the faint sound of scurrying animals when they get out of the car. Desert, it smells like, probably one of those towns that died in the latest economic meltdown.

"That one there's all boarded up," Spike says, and leads Angel again by the sleeve. It's bizarre, how carefully Spike is handling him. He and Spike have always been free with each other's bodies, whether he's knocking Spike's feet off a table or wrestling him to the ground. The delicacy makes Angel's teeth itch.

His hands move again to his face. The skin on his right cheek has already started to grow back.

"Dru used to gouge out the minions' eyeballs with her fingernails," Angel recalls, amid the sound of boards being pried open. "I can't remember how long those vamps took to heal."

"That's 'cause she always staked 'em right after. Said the screaming wasn't musical enough." Spike pushes down on Angel's head, like an officer hustling a suspect into the back seat of a police car. Angel steps through the opening and smells dust and grease traps.

"Abandoned restaurant?" he asks.

"Got it in one," Spike replies. He leads Angel into the room and turns him around; Angel feels the back of his knees connect with a chair and he sits. Spike's footsteps retreat into another room, and Angel listens to the sound of rummaging. Spike returns in less than a minute. "Power's still on. There's a microwave in the kitchen where we can heat the blood. Want more?"

Angel just nods. The cottonmouth snake is back, his throat too parched for speech. He hears the soft _thunk_ of a mug being set on a table in front of him, and he drinks while Spike rips cushions from a booth and sets up camp for them on the floor.

Angel is exhausted, but sleep doesn't come easily when you have no eyelids to close.

*

He wakes up screaming, pain ricocheting through his head like bullets inside a tank. There are steel bars shoved into his eye sockets.

"Jesus Christ!" He can hear Spike's voice next to him but it's drowned out by the sound of his own screams. His body thrashes and twists but he can't get away from the pain.

"Angel!" Spike is holding him down now, hands pressing him hard into the floor. "Change back! Put the teeth away, Angel! Now!"

In the tiny part of his brain that still remembers speech, Angel realizes his fangs are out. His eyes are trying to turn slitted and gold.

He arches his back, clenches his fists and retracts his teeth. The pain in his eyes recedes, but it still hurts like fuck. He stops thrashing. Spike's hands move away from his shoulders.

"You okay, mate?" His voice is shaking. Angel nods his head, weakly. He can't even cry.

After that, he doesn't sleep at all.

*

Spike spends the next couple of nights stealing supplies. Angel orders him to drive the car to the next town over, so the people in this one don't start looking for a thief. Spike grumbles about it not being safe to leave Angel alone for that long, but Angel calls him a moron. It's almost status quo.

Angel calls Connor while Spike is out. The conversation is short—Connor asks if Angel is okay, and Angel lies. Parents worry about their children, not the other way around.

Spike comes back with all the usual stuff—blankets, pillows, cigarettes, a few bottles of alcohol for which Angel is more grateful than he'll admit in a thousand years. And something he doesn't even recognize the smell of, until Spike puts it in his hands.

"Clay," Angel murmurs.

"Figured it'd give you something to while away the long hours," Spike says. "Know how you always liked to draw and such."

Angel hasn't sculpted in over a century. The last bust he made was of Darla, right before they left for Romania.

"What are _you_ going to do?" Angel gives the ghost of a smile. "Write poetry?"

"Well, you said you liked it," Spike says, sounding smug. "Careful what you wish for, Angelus."

He kneads his fingers in the clay, and it feels like smooth skin. Perfect and whole.

*

He remembers how Cordelia's face felt, cupped between his hands, her tears wetting his fingers as she cried in pain from the visions. How the back of Connor's tiny head cradled so perfectly into his palm. He remembers the feel of Wes's face struggling beneath a pillow, and the warmth of his arm against Angel's lips as he brought him back to life.

Angel doesn't sculpt any of those things.

Instead he starts with something simple. His fist, holding the hilt of Spike's sword. He knows the fingers are lumpy and the sword hilt is probably crooked, but he chooses to imagine that it gives the work a post-modern aesthetic.

"Bit Freudian, dontcha think?" Spike drawls. "You want the real thing, all you have to do is ask."

Angel throws clay at him, and is gratified to hear the splat.

Next he sculpts the table—upside-down, because the legs are too soft to support it until the whole thing dries. Then he runs out of clay.

The following night, Spike comes back with a bag of dry mix and a pocket full of sculpting tools.

"What did you do, steal the whole art store?"

"Pottery studio went out of business," Spike explains. "All this stuff was just sitting around. Figured someone should get some use out of it."

Angel would say thank you but it would only start an argument.

Spike's phone rings, and he heads into the kitchen to answer it, then out the back door. Despite vampire hearing and the absence of sight to distract him, Angel can't hear the conversation. Spike comes back with some water to mix the clay and plops it on the table in front of Angel.

"Who was that?"

"What?"

"On the phone. Who was it?"

"Oh, uh." Spike's fingers tap against his thigh. "Hospital. I left them this number. Told them to call with any news about Gunn."

Angel sits, staring into darkness, waiting. "And?" he finally prompts.

"Still in ICU. He's stable."

"So they were calling with no news," Angel says flatly.

"I'm hungry," Spike grunts. "Want blood?" He retreats into the kitchen to heat it.

Angel wants to ask more questions, but the answer might be Buffy. Instead, he begins mixing clay.

*

Spike is drunk and rambling on about some speak-easy he and Dru used to frequent in the 1920s. Angel isn't paying attention. He's been working on a bas-relief of Nina's face for the last three hours, but he can't remember the curve of her cheek, or the shape of her mouth against his.

"…total rock gut. The drinks were so watered down, we ate the mob boss who supplied the place. Cops had been trying to catch him for years, and…"

He's halfway through his third try on her bottom lip when he realizes he's been sculpting Drusilla's face instead. He quickly mashes the clay before Spike notices.

"…left him on the steps of the police station. After that, Dru started calling us the Untouchables. I was Eliot Ness, and she…"

Spike is lying on his back on the floor. Angel can tell by the way his voice echoes directly off the ceiling. His mouth hasn't stopped moving since Angel sat down.

"…out of Chicago. Never been back there since. Wonder if it's changed much? Hey, maybe after this, you and me can…"

Angel remembers the shape of Spike's mouth.

He gets up out of his seat and walks to Spike, stopping when he feels his toes hook under the end of the makeshift bed. He bends until the palm of his hand connects with Spike's chest. The T-shirt he wears is thin and worn, and Angel wonders why Spike hasn't bothered to steal himself any decent clothes.

Spike stops talking.

Angel kneels next to him. Moves his hand in a slow circle over the core of Spike's body. The only sound in the room is a soft hitch of breath.

Angel's fingers move up to Spike's face. He feels the sharp line of cheekbone against the backs of his fingers.

"Angel," Spike says, part warning, part question.

"I want to sculpt you," Angel says, as if this explains anything.

Spike doesn't move. "No one's stopping you, mate."

Angel's fingers pull away. "No, I mean…" He can smell single malt on Spike's breath, and he suddenly wants a drink very badly. "It'll involve a lot of…"

He shakes his head. Starts to move away, but Spike's fingers reach out and grab his. Leads them back to that long-remembered face, and Angel can feel Spike's lips moving beneath his thumb when he murmurs again, "No one's stopping you."

*

The first attempt is a ruin. He tries to use the clay from Nina's unremembered face but it has already started to dry. It flakes and crumbles under his fingers like vampire eyeballs and he ends up tossing it in the trash with a curse. Spike chuckles and falls asleep, and Angel helps himself to the other bottle of whisky. They both wake up furiously hung over and sleep through a night and a day.

The next night, Spike says to Angel, "You look like hell, mate."

Angel growls, careful not to let his fangs out. "Happens when you get your face burnt off."

"No, I mean, the normal kind of hell. Hung-over hell. You sleep last night?"

Angel grunts. His head hurts too much to move.

"Did you some good," Spike muses. "Your skin's nearly healed."

Angel touches his face. It feels like his face again.

"It's the first time I've slept since…" He waves his hands in front of his eyes, but there's no glimmer of movement. "Still dark."

"They're starting to look like eyes again," Spike reassures him. "Mostly. Reckon it won't be much longer."

Angel's headache suddenly vanishes. Spike heats their blood and they eat. Then he strips off his T-shirt, and Angel starts again.

*

"Stop moving."

"I'm not."

"You are. I can feel your chest moving up and down. You're breathing."

"I need breath to talk." Spike speaks as if Angel is a rhino-type demon with a particularly hard head. "I need words to tell you that I'm _not moving._ "

"Just keep still, for fuck's sake," Angel insists.

"Angel. I am going to take a deep, calming inhale like a bloody yogi. And when I hold it for the next hour, you are not allowed to tell me that I'm fucking _moving._ "

Spike takes a ridiculous, spiteful breath, and his ridiculous chest muscles rise and pop out in relief against Angel's palms. Angel runs his hands over the expanse of flesh, memorizing ridges and curves and transferring them, in miniature, to the clay. Spike is as still as the grave he came from, yet Angel can't get the contours right. He growls in frustration and wishes he were healed enough to sink in his teeth and _make_ the piece do his bidding.

He could swear that the goddamned clay itself is moving.

Angel works the piece all day, but it ends up in the trash like the first one. He falls into bed, exhausted, and sleeps without pain.

*

Three hours into the third effort, and Angel's stomach growls. He covers the clay with a wet cloth. "Lunchtime."

Spike goes to heat up some blood, and when he sets down the mug Angel sees something move, out of the corner of his eye.

"Do that again."

"Do what?" Spike asks, bewildered.

"Set the mug down."

Spike does, and Angel sees a vague blur of white.

"I saw you move." Angel smiles for the first time in weeks.

Spike leans over and puts his hands on either side of Angel's cheeks. His thumbs probe gently around the eyes. "Eyelids are all grown back," he observes. "Corneas white. Irises brown. Pupils still foggy, but that should clear up once the retinas heal."

"Thank you, Doctor the Bloody," Angel quips. He takes a deep breath and grips the edge of the table, hard. Squeezes his eyes tight, and lets his fangs come out.

When he opens his eyes, he can see a blurry outline of Spike leaning over him.

"Hurt?" Spike asks.

"Yeah," Angel admits. "But the view's worth it." Then he remembers who he's looking at and lets his fangs retract. "I mean… Not that you…" He makes a sour face. "You're ugly."

Spike laughs and punches him in the shoulder. "Charmer."

They call the hospital. Gunn is still in ICU but he's awake enough to talk for a few minutes at a time, and tomorrow he can start having visitors.

"Tomorrow night, then," Spike says. "We'll head back to LA."

Angel wonders if he'll be able to see Gunn's face, lying in his hospital bed. He's pretty sure it'll be easier if he can't.

*

They go back to the clay, and Angel works the torso into an undulating, oceanic mess. He moves onto the arms and legs in frustration but the muscles flutter like waves between his fingers. Moons and tides, sea foam and shifting sand.

"I think I added too much water," he complains.

"What's it made of?" Spike asks.

"Clay?" Angel feels his brow furrowing, like the furrow of muscles beneath the pads of his fingers. "I don't know. Earth, I guess. Soil and water."

"Mud, then."

"Maybe." Angel grins. "We always did like to wallow in the muck."

"Not so much anymore," Spike muses. "Leastways, not lately. People change, I guess."

"We're not people," Angel murmurs.

"No," Spike agrees, and lays his hand on Angel's wrist. "But we're not exactly demons anymore, are we?"

Angel sighs and lets his hands rest. His knuckles ache. "You know I used to be able to draw you with my eyes closed? Now I can't even…" He gestures at the formless lump between them. "It's like…" He searches for the words, but speech is more of a stranger to him than his eyesight.

"Like you don't know me anymore?"

"Like I don't even know _myself_ anymore." He looks at the grey fog of ceiling. "Half my team dead, no family…"

Connor's safe. Away from Angel. He intends to make sure he stays that way.

"You're a thick-headed git," Spike snarls, and now Angel can definitely hear him rolling his eyes. "You still have a team, Angel. Charlie's gonna be up and about in no time. And as for family, your kid's been calling me every night to check on you."

Angel reels back from his chair, knocking the sculpture to the floor as he stands. "How do you know about him?"

"Blue told me about that spell you did. And how it broke. After she buried Wes, she went to find Connor." It's the first time Angel has heard that name from Spike's lips, and it sounds all at once like ragged flesh and baby blankets. Horrible and beautiful.

"Illyria wants a memorial for Wes, soon as Gunn's well enough," Spike continues. "She asked the boy to help plan it, since she knows sweet fuck-all about human rituals. Oh, and Connor says to tell you he's reopening Angel Investigations even if you don't, so shut up and deal."

Angel sits on the floor, stunned. His ass lands on Spike's makeshift bed. "Nice to see that he's busy planning my life without me."

Spike sits next to him. "You really gonna tell the kid no?"

Angel shakes his head, bewildered. "You know me well enough to know the answer to that."

"See?" Spike nudges Angel with his shoulder. "Not such strangers after all."

The space in front of Angel's eyes flashes with color, and a wave of dizziness overtakes him. "This is just…" He puts a hand to his face.

"Weird?"

"Really fucking weird." The mound of clay on the floor forms into a shape before his eyes and then recedes again into darkness.

"Maybe we don't know each other the way we used to," Spike admits. "I never would've guessed you had a human kid. And don't think I'm not pissed at you for not telling. But we got plenty of time to annoy each other into getting reacquainted."

Angel takes a breath. "Connor really called you every night?"

"Like clockwork."

He considers the implications, the two of them plotting his fate behind his back. "I am so fucking screwed."

Spike barks out a laugh. "Not yet." He leans in close until Angel can feel Spike's lips brushing against his. "But you will be."

*

Angel remembers the shape of Spike's mouth. It presses against his like things old and new, memory and promises. He tastes of sugared soft drinks and his voice whispers like smoke against Angel's skin.

"Remember this, don't you, Da?" He's undressing Angel as he talks, and Angel lets himself be handled, moved. Made malleable. "All those hours with your hands roaming my body. Touching me everywhere." He kisses Angel again and their bodies press together into a tight embrace. Warm and entangled.

"Conveniently blind. But you could smell it, couldn't you?" Naked, smooth skin, and Angel hasn't forgotten the feel of Spike's hands. "How much I wanted you."

"Yeah," Angel breathes.

"Bad daddy," Spike chides. "Always did like to leave your boy hard and wanting. Evil, s'what you are."

"I could chain you up the way I used to," Angel muses. "Gag you to stop you complaining." The temptation is strong; old desires die hard. Yet this strange, new Angel enjoys the feel of that whiskey-smoked voice curling down his spine and around his dick.

Spike chuckles, low and dirty. "You love my mouth," he murmurs, and to prove his point, he slides down Angel's body and wraps those pretty pink lips around his cock.

Angel has never missed his eyesight more than he does at this moment. But he can see Spike's face in memory, cheeks bulging with cock, blue eyes sparking with mischief. Then fluttering closed, breathing in Angel's scent, his body undulating in one long line as his own dick jumps and quakes with the excitement of worship.

Spike moans in pleasure, and Angel licks his lips. His mouth waters. He pulls Spike back up his body. Spike lays kisses on the newly formed eyelids, then Angel turns his face into Spike's neck. There's a crinkle of bone and teeth quietly descend, like footsteps falling on stairs.

Spike pulls back and runs a hand over Angel's brow. "Angel," and his voice is thick with concern.

"Shhhhhhh," Angel whispers. He nuzzles deeply into Spike's neck. "Let me taste you."

Spike melts against him. "Angel," he repeats, and this time it's closer to a prayer.

The tang bursts across Angel's tongue and it's nothing like it was so long ago. Old years and a new soul, blood that flows in endless waves. He drinks until colors flash in front of his eyes.

When he pulls back, he can see Spike's fingers touching the wound before it recedes into darkness.

Spike's hands are moving him, lifting his legs, prying him open. Angel feels blood-slicked fingers pushing into him and his spine curls with pleasure. Then Spike's cock is pushing into him and Spike's body is pressing him down into the bed, his arms curling around Angel's head and shoulders, chest and belly whispering against his torso, voice chanting Angel's name in his ear.

Angel wraps his arms and legs around Spike's body and pulls him in, watching the darkness. His cock is slippery and leaking, sliding against Spike's belly with every thrust, with every incantation of his name, angel, angel,

"Angel. Oh, _fuck_ Angel," and the shout of Spike's voice makes him come hard and long and endless.

Long, long minutes later, Spike mutters into the pillow, "That was new."

New like moons and tides, sea foam and shifting sands.

*

Angel makes one last attempt at sculpture before they pack up and head back to the city. He picks up the shapeless mound on the floor and feels it changing under his hands. He could swear the clay itself is moving.

He rolls it flat and cuts it into a rectangle. Picks up one of the sculpting tools and carves letters into it with elegant, 18th-century handwriting. His eyesight is still blurry, but he can see the letters if he leans very close and squints. He lets it dry while Spike finishes packing.

"Given up on the human form, have you?" Spike asks as they're leaving.

"For now. I made something for Connor instead."

He turns it carefully toward Spike. It's a sign for the new agency. It reads, "Angel and Sons".

"You, uh." Spike waves a blurry hand in the direction of the sign. "You've got an extra 's' there, on the end of 'son'."

"I do?" Angel feigns surprise. He pretends to squint at the tablet. "Must be these new eyes. Still getting used to them."

"Gonna fix it?"

Angel raps his knuckles softly against the clay. "Too late," he says. "Already set."

"Hmph," Spike grunts. He turns towards the exit. "Even so. I'm sure the boy will love it."

This time, Angel is certain he can hear a smile.

"I'm sure he will," Angel grins, and follows Spike out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by kallysten's h/c request. Beta'd by thekita.


End file.
